Week 2 Reflection

Math Class Needs a Makeover

Welcome to week two of blogging for Year 2 of Math!

This week we explored some math messages about math, having a math mindset, and what a good math class should look like.  While looking at math mindsets and messages about math, it really helps students and teachers set the stage for having a good attitude and feeling positive about math.

An aspect of this weeks lesson that I really enjoyed learning about was the ‘Knowing, Doing and Understanding’ portion. It should come to no surprise that for any subject, the understanding should come before the knowing and doing. It makes sense to have students understand what it is they are working on first before they are sent free to complete the work. In a think-pair-share activity in class, myself and two of my colleagues discussed how we would want our students to understand what it is that is being taught in math such as multiplication first. If we allow the students to understand and see the relevance of what they are doing, they will have more of a reason to know and do the correct work. Once they have the understanding part down, it is easier to move on to the knowing and doing

An example of a multiplication question was shown to us in class relating to Average Hats. The question read ‘How many hates should be in Week 4 in order to have an average number of 7 hats per week?

When looking to solve this scenario, students in the United States favoured a visual solution that helps them with the understanding of the questions. By moving the hats around so that there are the same number of hats in each row, and then having to figure out how many hats would have to be in the fourth row, students arrived at the correct answer of 10 hats. This method allows for students to visually see what is occurring to help them understand.

            On the other hand, students in China favoured an arithmetic solution where they just used a formula to figure out the question. Students observed that the answer is the desired total number of hats, 4 times 7 hats, minus the hats already displayed which is 9+6+3 hats. Concluding that 28- (9+6+3)= 10 hats.

            While these students were able to use the numeric strategy to come up with the correct answer, they often have difficulty conceptualizing the problem correctly and understanding it fully. Without having that full understanding, students may know how to compute an average but may not understand which numbers to use, and end up getting the answer wrong.

        This concept of understanding versus knowing was displayed really put forth in the video ‘How Old is the Sherpherd?’ 

     This video clearly reveals those students who were able to understand what was going on. Students who questioned the problem and said that there wasn’t an answer to it displayed mathematical understanding and were able to justify their answer. They were able to explain in their own words as to why they think their reason to be true and to base their explanations in other mathematical principals.

     Had I had the opportunity for a strong foundation of the understanding portion of math, I feel that I would have been able to understand the knowing better and succeeded.